Getting Started with Claude

New chat: Click the pencil/compose icon in the top-left, or use the keyboard shortcut (Ctrl+/ or Cmd+/). 

Chat history: Your past conversations are listed in the left sidebar. You can rename these to make them easier to find. Claude can also search through them if you ask (e.g., “What did we discuss last week about the Q3 report?”).  

File uploads: Drag and drop files into the chat, or click the ‘+’ icon, then ‘Add files or photos.’ Claude handles PDFs, Word docs, Excel files, images, CSVs, code files, etc. 

Web search: Click the ‘+’ icon and check ‘Web search’ (or just ask a question about current events), and Claude will search the web for up-to-date information. 

Be specific: “Write a professional email declining a meeting” works better than “help me with an email.” 

Share context: Upload the document you’re working on. Paste in the email you’re responding to. The more Claude knows, the better it can help. 

Iterate: Claude’s first response doesn’t have to be the last. Say “make it shorter,” “more formal,” or “focus on the budget section” to refine. 

Ask for what you want: If you want a table, ask for a table. If you want bullet points, say so. If you want Claude to think step by step, tell it to. 

Meeting prep: Upload agendas and past notes. Claude can help prepare talking points and follow-ups, or summarize your meeting notes into the same format every time. 

Writing assistant: Upload your style guide and brand voice docs. Every piece of writing stays on-brand. 

Data analysis: Upload your dataset once, then ask questions about it across multiple conversations. 

Process documentation: Upload existing SOPs and have Claude help you update, improve, or create new ones. 

Email: “Find the email from Sarah about the vendor contract” or “Summarize my unread emails from today.” 

Calendar: “What’s on my calendar tomorrow?” or “Find a meeting time with Jake and Will next week.” 

SharePoint: “Find the Q4 sales report in SharePoint” or “What does the employee handbook say about PTO?” 

Teams: “Search my Teams messages about the product launch.” 

Search messages: “What did the team discuss about the release timeline in Slack?” 

Summarize threads: “Summarize the discussion in #product-updates about the API changes.” 

Send messages: Claude can draft and send Slack messages on your behalf (it will ask you to confirm before sending). 

Notion — Search and read our Notion pages and databases 

monday.com — Access boards, items, and project data 

HubSpot — Look up contacts, companies, deals, and CRM data 

Fireflies — Search and reference meeting transcripts 

Canny — Browse and reference product feedback 

Word documents (.docx) — Formatted reports, memos, letters, proposals 

Spreadsheets (.xlsx) — Data tables, calculations, formatted workbooks 

Presentations (.pptx) — Slide decks with content and structure 

PDFs — Polished, final-format documents 

Web pages (.html) — Interactive dashboards, visualizations, and prototypes 

Code files — Scripts, modules, and applications in any language 

“Turn this data into an Excel spreadsheet with charts.” 

“Create a Word doc summarizing these meeting notes.” 

“Make a PowerPoint with 5 slides covering our Q3 results.” 

“Build an interactive HTML dashboard from this CSV.” 

You can toggle memory on/off in Settings → Capabilities → Memory. 

If enabled: 

Memory is generated automatically from your conversations. You don’t need to do anything special. 

You can also explicitly tell Claude to remember something: “Remember that I prefer bullet points in status reports.” 

Memory updates roughly every 24 hours, so recent conversations may not be reflected immediately. 

Each Project (more on those below) has its own separate memory, so context stays organized. 

View and edit: Go to Settings → Capabilities → View and edit memory. 

You can ask Claude what it remembers about you at any time. 

You can ask Claude to forget specific things, or edit memories directly in Settings. 

Want a conversation off the record? Use Incognito Mode (ghost icon) — Claude won’t remember anything from that chat. 

Access it from the Style selector in the chat input area (click the ‘+’ icon, then “Use style”). 

Choose from preset styles or create your own custom style. 

Custom styles are reusable — save one called “Client Emails” or “Internal Reports” and switch between them. 

You can also provide Claude with a writing sample and ask it to match that style. 

New chat: Ctrl+/ (Windows) or Cmd+/ (Mac) 

Search past chats: Just ask Claude, “What did we talk about regarding [topic]?” 

Reference past conversations: Claude can search your chat history. Ask things like “Continue where we left off on the budget analysis” or “What was the approach we discussed for the API integration?” 

Upload multiple files: Claude can work with several files at once. Drop in a spreadsheet and a brief and say, “Compare these.” 

Ask for alternatives: “Give me three different approaches” or “What would a more conservative version look like?” 

Use Claude as a reviewer: Paste in a draft and ask, “What’s missing?” or “How would you improve this?” 

Chain tasks together: “First summarize this report, then draft an email to the team with the key takeaways, then create a PowerPoint with the highlights.”